Judges 13-16

Once again in Judges 13, the cycle repeats: the Israelites do evil in the sight of the Lord and the Lord gives them into the hand of the Philistines, this time for forty years. However, God in his grace does not leave the Israelites alone forever. He raises up yet another judge to deliver them from the Philistines. This time it is the most well known (to us) judge of all: Samson.

With the entrance of Samson on the scene we are led to expect that he will be a holy man, unlike some of those judges who have gone before him. Samson’s conception is apparently miraculous because his mother has been barren up to this time. This follows a theme of miraculous births in the Torah, like that of Isaac. Furthermore, Samson is to be a Nazirite, dedicated to the Lord from birth. According to Numbers 6, the Nazirite was never to touch grapes or anything to do with them, like wine. The Nazirite was never to shave his head. Thirdly, the Nazirite was not to touch a dead body.

However, Samson turns out to be nothing like what we are led to expect at the beginning of his story. He breaks all three aspects of the Nazirite vow by:

Touching a dead lion (Judges 14:9).
Participating in a feast that probably involved drinking wine (Judges 14:10).
Telling Delilah the source of his strength, thus opening the way for her to have his head shorn while he is asleep on her lap (Judges 16:19).

On top of all this, Samson is a lusty man, who insists on having a Philistine wife, whom he later abandons. After this, he has sexual relations with a prostitute. Finally, he hooks up with another Philistine woman, Delilah. In addition to lust, Samson appears to be full of anger; he acts out of his rage on numerous occasions.

Yet, according to the story, God seems to use both Samson’s lust, and his rage, to accomplish the divine purpose of punishing the Philistines. The reader is told that Samson’s parents did not know that his desire to take a particular Philistine as his wife “was from the Lord; for he was seeking a pretext to act against the Philistines.” (Judges 14:4) We are also told that it is "the spirit of the Lord" that comes upon Samson giving him great strength to kill the Philistines (Judges 14:19). There seems to be nothing at all holy about Samson, according to our usual way of thinking about holiness, and yet God uses this man.

What are we to make of this story? The text in Judges gives us no moral comment whatsoever on Samson’s seeming lack of holiness and the breaking of his Nazirite vows. And the New Testament seemingly makes matters worse. In the book of Hebrews, Samson is grouped with other men of faith, all of whom appear to be at least somewhat holier than he was. “For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets—who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.” (Hebrews 11:32-34)

When we read this story, not by itself alone, but in the context of the rest of Scripture, it is clear that we are not to model ourselves after such a person as Samson. However, could it be that perhaps the message of this story is that God can use us even in our weakness and sin?

What do you think?

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